


No words

by hulkwidoww



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-05-22 07:07:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6069895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulkwidoww/pseuds/hulkwidoww
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s gone when she wakes up, but his side of the mattress is still warm.</p><p> </p><p>How Beck ended up in Johanssen's bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in a new fandom. Scary! I usually write for another fandom, but I want to keep my main fandom separate from other fandoms I occasionally write for, so I opened another AO3 account. 
> 
> I just read The Martian, and how could I not fall for Chris and Beth, right? So... when I finished the book, I do what I always do: I started reading fanfiction. I discovered that although it's not a very large fandom, there were a lot of good fics. Which in turn inspired me to write my own take on these two. 
> 
> Unbetaed (sorry), because I keep my regular beta busy enough as it is, I don't want to dump characters from a fandom she doesn't know at all on her. The first chapter isn't Explicit, but my fics are usually pretty smutty *cough cough* and I guess this one will be too. You know, million-mile-high club and all.

**Beck**

He is painfully aware he _should_ know what to say.

As their doctor, he is responsible for their medical needs, both physical and mental. He’s not a psychiatrist, but he did have extensive training in psychiatry and psychology after he was chosen to be the Ares 3 flight surgeon. His training in psychiatry was, of course, focused on scenarios and diagnoses that NASA considered particularly important when a few inches of metal are all that separate you from the endless vacuum of space.

Various anxiety and mood disorders. PTSD. 

Naturally, the death of a crewmate is one of the scenarios he has been trained for. They all have. But he, as their doctor, has been trained to care for the others as well. Including diagnosing them, and treating them if necessary.

But now? He is ashamed to discover that the words he's been taught simply won’t come. He should say something, _anything_.

He realizes he’s not their doctor. Right now, h’s just a crewmate, a colleague, a friend. He’s just as devastated as the rest of them.

Watney is dead.

There are no words.

Tears roll down Johanssen’s cheek as they sit silently around the dinner table that night. She shows more emotions than the others, he thinks, trying to think like the doctor he has failed to be today. Of course, her outward display of emotion doesn't necessarily mean that she's taking this harder than any of the others. But maybe she does. She's the youngest and, despite her impressive resume, the most inexperienced. Or maybe it’s because she was Watney’s partner out there, on the way to the MAV. They were supposed to have each other’s back. Not that there was anything she could have done. But surely that must be impossible for her accept right now. Her brain must be as full of what if’s as his own is.

Martinez takes her hand, squeezes it. He can see that she squeezes it back. He wishes he could be the one to do that, do something to comfort her even when words fail him, but he’s sitting on the opposite side of the table.

Vogel hasn’t eaten anything. He’s shuffling the food with his fork. From one side of the plate to the other. Beck meets his eyes across the table, and nods at his plate. Vogel sighs and follows his doctor’s silent order. He eats, almost mechanically, without looking up from his plate.

The chair next to his own is empty.

Finally, Beck looks over at Lewis, separated from him by that empty chair. He's never seen her look this pale.

He can barely make himself walk past Watney’s door on the way to his own room that night.

 

* * *

 

 

**Beck**

Slowly, life on Ares 3 returns to normal. Sort of.

It’s a new normal. A much more quiet and subdued one. Everyone seems to throw themselves into work. There’s not much else to do.

Vogel spends more time with his chemicals than with his crewmates. Lewis writes reports. Endless reports, about how the mission on Mars had to be aborted prematurely, all the events, actions and decisions that eventually led up to them leaving, five instead of six. He’s not quite sure what Martinez is actually doing, but he seems to be everywhere, all the time. In the privacy of Beck's medlab, Martinez finally confesses that he has problems concentrating on any one task. Beck prescribes him a mild antidepressant, and tells him to report back in two days. Sooner, if he feels that he's deteriorating.

Johanssen runs diagnostics on the Hermes’ software. Again and again, almost compulsively.  

Beck runs diagnostics too, so to speak. On all his crewmates. On himself, too. He does the standard biweekly check-ups, of course. They are both for health and research reasons, and include blood samples, urine samples, EKG. But NASA wants him to include extra psychiatric check-ups as well. They’ve emailed him a list of standardized questions, and he knows they’ve probably been developed by a team of NASA’s brightest MD’s and psychologists, probably with the assistance of Ivy League med school professors and psychiatry text book editors and who the fuck knows who else. They're probably going to want to write a paper on this too. Fuckers. They'd do anything to publish a paper, and let's face it, this situation is totally NEJM material. Still, he obediently goes through the list with everyone, of course, himself included, but it feels like a waste of time.

He already knows what’s wrong, the problem is that he has no idea how to fix it. They’re all blaming themselves. They all wonder if there is something they could have done differently on that last day on Mars. Decisions that maybe, possibly, could have saved Watson’s life.

Decisions that may just has well have resulted in all of them dying instead of just Watney. Who knows.

 

* * *

 

 

**Johanssen**

She is only half awake, but she feels a pressure deep in her belly, and realizes why she woke up. Dammit. She groans. She shouldn’t have had that cup of tea last night. She looks at the fluorescent numbers on the computer screen on the wall, now in night mode. The clock also serves as emergency light. It would be pitch dark in here without it.

It’s only 3 AM. Her bladder won't last until the morning, she might as well go right now. Get a few more hours of uninterrupted sleep after. She’s about to get out of bed when she hears steps outside the door. She wonders who’s up at this hour. She doesn’t really feel like meeting someone just now, so she waits. It’s probably just someone who’s going to the bathroom in the middle of the night too. But after a few minutes, she realizes she must be wrong. It's not just a nightly visit to the bathroom. Someone’s walking back and forth in the corridor, and it doesn't seem like whoever it is is going to stop anytime soon.

She makes a decision. She really needs to go. She quietly unlocks the door and slides it open.

He doesn’t see her at first, because his back is turned to her. She hasn’t expected it to be Beck. She doesn’t quite know why, or who she had expected it to be. Just not him. He turns around at the end of the corridor, ready to go back, and freezes when he sees that she’s awake.

She frowns when she notices his bloodshot eyes, and the bags under his eyes. Now that she thinks about it, he’s had those for a while.

“Chris,” she whispers. She doesn’t use his first name usually, no one in NASA uses first names. But sometimes, when it’s just the two of them alone, she does. Because he tends to call her Beth when they are alone. No, he doesn’t _tend_ to do it, she corrects herself. It’s more like he… slips sometimes.

Right now, it feels like _she’s_ slipped.

“Are you okay?” She asks. Her voice is soft, she doesn’t want to wake up the others.

“Uh… yeah. Sorry if I woke you up.”

“You didn’t.”

She goes to the bathroom. When she returns, a few minutes later, she sort of expects him to have gone back to his room. But he hasn’t. He’s still pacing.

“Can’t sleep?” She asks.

He shakes his head.

“Don’t you have drugs for that?”

“Well yeah.” He rolls his eyes. “I have drugs for everything, don’t I.”

“But clearly you don’t take them yourself.”

Double standards, she thinks. Just after Watney died, he asked her if she needed drugs to help her sleep. She declined, because sleep is the one thing she’s never had problems with.

“No.”

“Why not?”

He hesitates. “Because I’m afraid of what I see when I close my eyes,” he finally admits, his words a bit rushed, as if he’s ashamed. His eyes are fixed on the floor.

She doesn’t have to ask him what he’s afraid of seeing. She doesn’t have to know the details - whether it’s the vacuum of space sucking every molecule of air out of his lungs, or being buried in red Martian sand forever, or the storm, or… well, the list goes on. It doesn’t matter. She reaches out to touch his shoulder.

“Would it help if you weren’t alone?” she asks. Later, she’s going to ask herself what gave her the courage to ask that question.

He finally looks up at her, confused. She can feel the heat of his skin through the thin t-shirt he sleeps in. It’s NASA issue. Non-flammable, extra light material. Like her own.

Up close, she sees how exhausted he is. She wonders if he’s gotten any sleep at all tonight. And last night. And the night before that.

“My bed is big enough for two.” Well, she thinks it is, anyway. She’s never tried, and she sure as hell knows that NASA never intended two people to sleep in one bed. But she’s small, and if they squeeze in…

He nods, wordlessly. She smiles, and he follows her into her room. She locks the door behind them. She gets into bed, her back pressed against the wall, motioning for him to lie down too. It’s dark, she can only barely see his features in the light from the computer screen.

It’s awkward, a little. They’re not used to being this close. He lies down with his back towards her, she would be the big spoon if they’d been spooning, but they’re not, because that would be too intimate. That’s not what crewmates do. She doesn’t quite know what to do with her hands, where to put them. She can’t hold him, as she would if he were her… well. If they were something they’re clearly not. She ends up tucking one hand under her cheek, the other resting on the mattress between them. The bed is narrow, he’s so close she can feel the heat radiating off him.

When was the last time she slept this close to someone? She can’t even remember.  

He lies completely still, but he’s not asleep. She can tell from his breathing, from the stiffness in his shoulders.

“How did you know?” He whispers into the darkness.

“Know what?”

“That my nightmares were of… being alone.”

She hadn’t, not really. But she supposes that at the end of the day, _all_ their nightmares are about being alone these days. They are about space, and loss, and yeah. Alone.

“You were pacing in the corridor outside the bedrooms,” she whispers back. “Close to us. Instead of going somewhere else. Which would’ve made sense if you’d really wanted to be alone.”

She hears him exhale, a deep shuddering breath. “Thank you.”

The last thing she thinks before she drifts off to sleep, is wondering just who the ship’s doc would turn to if he feels as if he’d crack under the pressure.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for leaving comments & kudos! I guess writing for a new fandom wasn't that scary after all, thank you for making me feel welcome. :)

****

**Beck**

He wakes up, burying his face in the mattress to shut out the light. The morning program of the _Hermes_ is supposed to help their bodies maintain a normal circadian rhythm - mimicking dawn on Earth by gradually increasing the lights before the alarm goes off at 0630. Ironically, Beth, who is always the last to get up, is the who programmed it.

He thinks he recalls falling asleep with his back to her. He must have turned around in his sleep at some point during the night though, because now, they are face to face. He can feel her breath against his chin. It’s a very narrow bed, after all.

It’s been so long since the last time he woke up like this. With a woman in his bed. Or more accurately, in hers.

She looks so young when she’s asleep. Her eyelashes are long, dark and curved against her pale skin. They flutter slightly, but knowing Beth well after two years of training, not to mention spending months on a spaceship with her, he knows she won’t wake up until the alarm goes off. He can see why now. It doesn’t seem like the change in light has any kind of effect on her. Beth is known to sleep like the dead, and Watney used to joke that she is only barely human until she’s had at least two cups of coffee. Once, back on Earth, Martinez threw a bucket of cold water on her to wake her up. It turned out the usually quiet and somewhat reserved Beth has a surprisingly colorful vocabulary he doesn’t think her mother knows anything about.

He allows himself to just look at her for a minute or two. He feels slightly guilty, hoping she wouldn’t find it, well… creepy. If she knew.

He slips out of bed, careful not to wake her, and returns to his own room. There will be hell to pay if Lewis sees him exiting Johanssen’s room in the morning.

His body is aching. He must have known, even in his sleep, that there was someone else in the bed, and he probably hasn’t moved in his sleep the way he normally would if he were alone. Or if he were sharing a bed with a girlfriend, the way you do after sleeping together has become a habit. Which it hasn't been for him in, what – five years? He’s been too busy to have a girlfriend, it just hasn’t been a priority. First he worked his ass off to get picked for the Ares 3 mission. Then he worked his ass off during training. He’s had his share of one night stands, of course, but he would always go to her place, because that meant he was free to leave any time he wanted after. He could avoid both sleeping in a stranger’s bed _and_ the awkward morning after. Double win.

Of course, this is a very different situation. And even though his muscles are aching, he still feels more rested than he has in weeks.

 

* * *

 

**Johanssen**

He’s gone when she wakes up, but his side of the mattress is still warm.

She stumbles out of bed when the alarm becomes increasingly annoying and impossible to ignore. Dammit, why did NASA make her write that program? A quick shower helps her keep her eyes open long enough to make it to the coffee pot – or the sorry excuse for coffee they have on the _Hermes_ , anyway.

Beck has almost finished his breakfast already. She’s not surprised – he’s a morning person, or at least much more of a morning person than she is. He smiles and says good morning, the way he always does. He obviously can’t say anything about what happened last night over breakfast, but he doesn't give any indication that anything’s different. No stolen glances, embarrassment or grateful smiles, nothing. He’s perfectly polite and friendly, as usual. She’d almost think it was all a dream, if it hadn’t been for that mattress.

That, and she can still feel remember the way he smells. He smells clean and… man.   

She has an appointment in the med bay at 0900, her usual biweekly one. She knocks on the door, and enters.

He asks her the usual questions about her health. She practically knows then by heart by now, and she knows that he does. When he’s done with the routine questions, he picks up his tablet from his desk, grimacing slightly. She knows it’s the list of psych questions NASA sent him after Mars. He sends her an apologetic look, he must hate these questions as much as the rest of crew does. Or perhaps more accurately – he hates the reason why he has to ask them in the first place.

She gives him the usual answers. No, she is not experiencing any fatigue, or feelings of hopelessness, or guilt, or headaches, or… The list goes on and on. She knows very well the NASA psychiatrists are trying to tease out whether she has PTSD, a major depressive episode, or some other diagnosis in their no doubt lengthy diagnostic manual. And if she lies a little bit about the guilt, then who cares? She doesn’t feel guilty, at least not if she’s comparing herself to Lewis. And everything is relative, right?

So, she supposes she’s… fine.

The biological samples are easier, because they are more clinical, and far less personal. She hands him the sterile plastic container of morning urine she collected earlier, even though she was in her half comatose pre-coffee state. By now she’s given him too many urine containters to feel shy or awkward about it. He doesn’t have to ask her to extend her arm, she knows what’s coming next. He disinfects the skin of the inside of her elbow. He doesn't palpate her vein, but he still finds it on the first try, blindly. She has tricky veins. More than a few nurses have complained about them over the years.

“You’ve really gotten to know my veins well, haven’t you?” She jokes.

He looks at her dark red blood filling the third and final vial. “You’ve been my patient for more than half a year, it would’ve been scandalous if I’d missed.” He smiles. He looks better today. His eyes aren’t as bloodshot, his skin color looks healthier.

She doesn’t miss that he builds up a wall between them by using the word “patient”. She’s quite certain he’s doing it on purpose.

“You don’t have to do it alone,” she says. The words just slip out.

He furrows his brow. “What do you mean?” He gets up from his chair, putting the vials into the blood analyzer in the corner. She studies his back, notices that he looks tense.

“It, uh...” She feels like an idiot. She should probably have prepared this speech in advance. She’s terrible at this… empathic friend thing, or whatever it is that she’s trying to do. Ugh. She doesn’t even know what exactly she’s trying to say. All she knows is that she’s failing miserably. “You don’t have to sleep alone. If it helps, you could sleep in my bed again. If you want,” she quickly adds.

She bites her lip. What the hell was she thinking? Why would he want to sleep in her bed?

“It’s a narrow bed,” he says, still busy with the blood analyzer. He’s right. It is. “My back is killing me.” He chuckles, she has no idea why. What’s so funny about his back hurting.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” she begins, but her voice trails off, because she really hadn’t planned what to say, and now she has no idea.

He turns around, facing her. His eyes are wary. “I haven’t slept like that, _really_ slept, for… weeks, I guess.” She knows what he means. Since _Mars_.

She has. Getting sleep isn’t her problem, it never was. She does have nightmares from time to time, which is probably not surprising considering, but not often enough to disrupt a significant proportion of her sleep. Still, it was comforting to have him in her bed last night.

“Lewis would kill us if she found out,” he continues, but there’s something hopeful in his voice, and only then does she realize that he’s actually going to take her up on her offer.

 

* * *

 

**Johanssen**

He knocks on her door, so quietly she can barely hear him. She assumes he doesn’t want to wake the others, who are hopefully asleep already. She wouldn’t have heard him knock if she had fallen asleep herself, which she normally would have. But not tonight. She wanted to be awake when he came, she suspected he’d just go back to his own room if he found that she had fallen asleep already.

She slides the door open. “Come in,” she whispers. “It’s not locked.”

In the light from the hallway, she sees how tired he looks. Then he closes the door behind him, and all she can see, is his silhouette against the greenish night light from the computer screen on the wall.

They both get into bed, and like last night, they’re spooning but not spooning, with her by the wall. She figures it’s easier if he sleeps closer to the door if he’s going to go back to his own room tomorrow morning, before anyone else wakes up.

“You can just come in tomorrow night if you want to,” she whispers. “There’s no need to knock.”

“Okay.” He pauses. “Goodnight, Beth.”

“Goodnight, Chris.”

 

* * *

 

**Beck**

It’s strange how quickly sleeping in the same bed as Beth becomes his new normal.

Looking back at it, the fact that he stopped thinking of her as Johanssen should probably have been his first warning sign. That happened, well… very early on in training. It took him a while longer to admit to himself that he had feelings for her, though. Feelings that he should definitely not have, for a number of reasons, including – but not limited to - 1) NASA (he would never jeopardize her chance to go to Mars, or his own, for that matter); 2) she’s his patient for God’s sakes; 3) she’s totally out of his league; and 4) Lewis.

It didn’t take their commanding officer long to notice his crush on Beth. He still has no idea how she found out, but Martinez, Watney and Vogel found out too, so he suspects he wasn’t as subtle as he’d thought. Lewis told him in no uncertain terms just what she’d do to him if he ever made a move on Beth while they were under her command.

He’s pretty sure she never gave that talk to Beth, because there wouldn’t be any point, now would it.

Now that they sleep in the same bed though, it feels silly to even _try_ to think of her as Johanssen, so he doesn’t do that anymore. Every night, he silently slides the door to Beth’s room open after everyone has retired to their rooms. Sometimes she’s already asleep, but usually, she’s still awake. After a while he realizes that she’s waiting up for him.

His long history of having sexual fantasies starring Beth Johanssen should probably be number one on the long list of reasons why he should never have agreed to her wild idea of sleeping in the same bed. For the last year or so – well, to be honest, it’s probably closer to two years – he has _always_ ended up thinking of her when he comes. Even when he has actively tried to think about someone else, watched porn or whatever.

And afterwards, he’s always felt guilty, and it’s been awkward to talk to her.  He has _tried_ not to think of her when he jerks off, because obviously it’s inappropriate, and she would be mortified and angry if she knew, but it just doesn’t work.

Strangely, now that they are here in the darkness, in the same narrow bed, those fantasies seem very distant.

He’s missed this, he realizes. He’s missed having a warm, soft body beside him at night. The luxury of just being close to someone. Maybe that’s all he needs right now, or at least it’s all he’s able to receive.

So even though there are a lot of reasons why he should politely tell her that he’ll sleep in his own bed, he still goes to her room every night. Because thanks to her warm and soft presence, he actually sleeps _well_. His days feel lighter, too, now that he’s not constantly sleep deprived. He’s able to laugh when Martinez attempts to tell a joke. It’s not the same now that Watney’s not around. Martinez and Watney were best friends, always finishing each other’s jokes and messing with each other. It’s different now. Martinez obviously feels it, too, but he _tries_. Everyone tries. They don’t have any choice. They still have months of dangerous space travel ahead of them.

He’s not sure if this new arrangement helps Beth too, but he’d like to think that it does. That the comfort is not completely one-sided.

 

* * *

 

**Johanssen**

The beds were definitely not made for two. NASA takes their no fraternizing rule seriously, and obviously that includes creating structural barriers to said fraternization.

She couldn’t care less, though. Screw NASA and their stupid regulations. With each passing day, she sees how Beck relaxes more. He starts to look healthier, less drawn – more like he did before. He’s always gone before she wakes up in the morning, but sometimes she wakes up briefly during the night to find that they have drifted together in their sleep.

He’s a pleasant bed partner. No sheet hugging, no elbows or knees in her belly in her sleep, no snoring. If he had been her boyfriend or something, she would’ve jokingly told him, but she doesn’t. It’s an unspoken rule that they don’t speak about their sleeping arrangement. If she were to do that, she’s afraid he’d think it means she doesn’t want him there anymore. But she does. So they don’t talk about it.

They do talk about other stuff, though. Whispered conversations at night, before they fall asleep. They always fall asleep the same way they did that first night, spooning but not spooning, but before that, they talk. Face to face.

There are two more unspoken rules: 1) Never talk about Mars. 2) Never talk about the future. Aside from that, they talk about everything and nothing, really. About their day. Stories from college. About working out, about their families, or how sick they are of NASA food.

 It’s nice. She finds herself looking forward to going to bed every night.  

Even though they spend every night together, or maybe that’s precisely why, they also spend more time together during the day now than they did before. She stops by the med bay. Her excuse, that she has to check on his computers, is flimsy at best. She could do it from the control room - which, she admits to herself, he probably knows, but he’s kind enough not to call her out on it. Instead, he takes a break from whatever it is that he’s doing and they have a cup of coffee together.

He, on the other hand, asks her if she wants to work out with him. They place the treadmills next to each other, by the panorama window, and as they are running, he points out the stars in front of them for her. He makes up new constellations and the stories behind them (lots of fake Greek gods) because they can’t recognize the ones they’re used to seeing from Earth out here. She laughs so hard she has to stop the treadmill to catch her breath.

She realizes she hasn’t laughed like this in a long time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a while to get this chapter right (well, hopefully I got it right, anyway - I guess you'll be the judges of that). Building up a relationship, step by step, is a lot harder than just writing plain ol' angst. I had to do some research, too - there's a lot we don't know about the Mars-Earth leg of their mission, but I still didn't want to write anything that was in violation of canon. I apologize in advance if I missed something, though. 
> 
> The end of this chapter was originally very different, but something about this chapter just didn't feel right, and I didn't know what the problem was. Then one night, I suddenly started writing an alternate ending. I don't even know where it came from, and it sort of caught me by surprise. As soon as the scene was finished, I knew I had found out what was missing. That's why the chapter didn't work. More about that in the end notes, I don't want to give anything away. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who's left comments and given me kudos! It's always very motivating to know that someone actually reads the stuff I write. :) 
> 
> This is unbetaed, sorry. I've been working too closely with my regular beta for too long to work with someone else, I'm afraid.

 

**Beck**

He blinks against the fake sunrise. Her leg is entangled with his own, and she has drooled on his t-shirt. His arm is resting on her waist. He wishes he didn’t have to, but he really needs to get up, it’s late. He carefully gets out of bed, and she sighs, or maybe it’s closer to a grunt really, when she turns over. Even in her sleep, she knows he’s no longer there.

He holds his breath, but Beth doesn’t wake up. She still has another twenty minutes or so before the alarm goes off, and after that, she has another fifteen minutes before Martinez will physically drag her out of her bed.

He sneaks back into his own room. He lies down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

He’s a healthy male in his mid-thirties. Who (although Beth has no idea, of course) is waking up to the actual woman of his dreams every morning. At first, he was worried about how his body would react to having her this close, and whether he could hide it from her. But now, after several weeks of sleeping in Beth’s bed, it’s the complete _lack_ of reaction to her which is worrying him.

He knows why, of course. He also knows it’s not a good idea for doctors to diagnose themselves. It’s a slippery slope. People with hypochondria are often ridiculed, but he’s fully aware that hypochondria can be very distressing, even debilitating, and is definitely nothing to make fun of. It’s _especially_ bad when you’re a doctor and start searching for symptoms. It’s so easy for the brain to go into overdrive and start searching for things that just aren’t there.

But he’s on a goddamn spaceship and it’s not as if there are any other doctors around. Plus he _really_ doesn’t want to involve NASA in this. So he mentally starts to lists the symptoms. Fatigue, anhedonia, insomnia, loss of libido... When he gets to the end of the list, he swallows deeply. He could of course go through the mood disorder diagnostic criteria sets in the DSM-12, but he decides against it. If he did, he’d have to record the diagnosis in his own medical file.

He knows what would happen if he did. There would be even more lists from NASA, and they’d make him take drugs. They’d involve Lewis, too. In short, it would result in even more NASA control. So NASA is not the answer. And sure, he has access to drugs, a whole fucking pharmacy. He could take antidepressants without recording it in his medical file, but he’d have to answer for the missing drugs when they come home.

The alarm suddenly goes off in all six rooms simultaneously, startling him. Beth told him one night that she hasn’t been able to bring herself to disable the alarm in Watney’s room, so it’s still active. He hears Lewis in the hallway. She’s always the first to rise. She’s talking to Vogel, so obviously he’s up, too. Martinez bangs on Beth’s door, as usual, and she yells “leave me the fuck alone,” the way she does every morning.  

He quickly gets dressed. He better get the coffee ready, Beth needs her first daily dose of caffeine. In the kitchen he fills a cup for himself, and gives one to Martinez too when he shows up.

“God, Johanssen was a dragon this morning,” Martinez complains.

“She was?” He asks innocently. “She always tells you to leave her the fuck alone. Sounded pretty normal to me.”

“Yeah, but at 0645 she _still_ hadn’t gotten out of bed, so it was time for the standard Johanssen morning protocol.” Beth, an ex-hacker and computer geek, was probably awake until 0400 and slept until noon before she joined NASA. Ok, so maybe he’s just prejudiced, but it’s pretty clear that Beth’s diurnal rhythm clashes with Lewis’s military training. With Lewis being the commanding officer, there’s no question of who wins, so a couple of weeks into the mission, Martinez got Lewis’s permission to do whatever it takes to wake up Beth if she’s still in bed at 0645. “Anyway, when I got into her room, she was still barely conscious. But man, she wasn’t happy when I lifted her up and threw her over my shoulder. She swore like a sailor, and tried to scratch my back.” Chris can’t help but laugh. “I know you’ve had a crush on Johanssen since, like, _forever_ , but seriously, Beck – are you really sure you want to wake up to _that_ every morning? Because…”

To his relief, he hears Lewis’s steps in the hallway and quickly clears his throat, silencing Martinez. When their commanding officer enters the room, both men are busy with their coffee cups.

If Martinez knew that he’s actually slept in Beth’s bed for weeks now, he’d never hear the end of it, he thinks. Martinez doesn’t have any idea that he _knows_ what it’s like to wake up next to Beth every morning. He knows that her eyelids flutter slightly in her sleep, and he knows how the heat of her small body feels against his own.

He hasn’t woken her up, though, so he doesn’t know what that would be like. He’s imagined it, of course. He used to fantasize about waking her up in the morning with his tongue, in fact, that was one of his favorite fantasies. He doesn’t fantasize about her anymore though, he hasn’t done that since Mars. But waking up next to her still makes him feel… better. Surely things will get easier, day by day. So no drugs, he decides. No NASA involvement. He just has to keep himself busy during the day, and at night, he has Beth.  

 

* * *

 

**Johanssen**

One of the best things about Chris is that he knows when to shut up. Even in the darkness, he knows. She’s actually quite impressed, because she knows her signals can be difficult to read. The psych evaluation was very clear on that, and she knows that report came very close to excluding her from Ares 3. Thankfully, her computer skills and knowledge of the operating system of the _Hermes_ were so superior to those of the other candidates that NASA decided to pick her after all. It probably helped that, despite her reserved nature, the psych report said that she had good chemistry with a few of the other top candidates -  Chris and Watney in particular.

Well, now one of them is dead, and the other sleeps in her bed every night. She’s not quite sure what that says about her and the people she apparently has “good chemistry” with. Hopefully nothing.  

She spends more time with Chris during the day now, too. She’s not quite sure when it started, or who started it, but she figures that’s probably not very important anyway. They work out together sometimes. At 1100 sharp every day, he finds her, wherever she is and whatever she’s working on. Just in time before the first daily dose of caffeine starts to wear off. Okay, so that cup of coffee at 1100 was definitely something _he_ started, she decides, but watching movies in the rec room at night was probably her idea.

At night, they sometimes talk for hours before they fall asleep. And on the nights when she doesn’t feel like talking, their silences are never awkward. Even though they are only inches apart, sometimes even less. 

 

* * *

 

**Johanssen**

The voice message is brief.

Watney’s live. He’s alive! She can barely believe it. Her first reaction is an intense feeling of relief.

The second is shock. Shock that he is alive, but most of all shock that NASA didn’t tell them. They knew for _months_ without telling them. How could they let them go through months of grief for nothing?

But then she sees how pale Lewis’s face is. She says that the responsibility for leaving one of her crew on Mars, alive, is on her as the commanding officer. Maybe it’s for the best that NASA didn’t tell them until there was a rescue plan.

She spends most of the day with Vogel, analyzing NASA’s plans for rescuing Watney. NASA only sends them after Lewis has requested them twice. Beth is pretty sure NASA isn’t telling them everything, but what they do tell them, well… Vogel frowns and mutters something under his breath in German. She’s pretty sure he’s thinking the same thing she is. Anything and everything could go wrong with Iris, but that’s the part of the rescue plan which is so obviously dangerous, it’s what everyone focuses on.

But there’s so much more. The hab wasn’t made to function for four years. All the food in the world isn’t going to be of any help to Watney if there is a sudden hab decompression, or if the water recycler stops working, or the oxygenator, or some other piece of vital equipment. And even if Iris gets to Mars in one piece, and the hab remains functional for four years, which are two pretty big ifs, Watney will have to survive four years of isolation on a very hostile planet without going nuts. Just thinking about it makes something twist in her stomach, and she’s a computer geek who doesn’t mind spending days with a computer as her only company. Watney isn’t like her at all. He’s sociable, talkative, and he loves being around people. And then, assuming he survives all that, Watney would also have to survive the trip to Schiaparelli, in a vehicle that was in no way designed for long-distance travel.

There’s another reason why she’s worried, too. Although history has proven time and again that individual astronauts are very capable of improvising when they have to, NASA as an organization is like a heavily loaded freight train. Once the wheels start rolling, it’s not easy to change course. NASA is great at following carefully laid plans, and missions are usually planned a decade or longer in advance. Is NASA really capable of throwing away all their plans and making new ones at short notice? Will they miss a small but vital detail, which results in a dead Watney on Mars?

Only after she’s in bed does she realize just how tired she is. The day has been an emotional rollercoaster. She has to fight to stay awake, she doesn’t want to be asleep when Chris sneaks into her room. She really needs to talk to him tonight, to try to make sense of it all. She’s come to rely on his voice in the darkness, his body heat lulling her to sleep.  She has barely seen him all day, he’s been holed up in the med bay for whatever reason. He’s late. When he finally slips into her bed, she sighs in relief.

She immediately senses that something is wrong. They’ve shared a bed for a while now, and they’ve grown comfortable with each other. They usually lie face to face when they talk before they fall asleep, and because the bed is so narrow, she feels his warm breath on her face.

But now, he’s facing the door instead of her.

“What’s wrong?” She whispers. She can guess, but she wants him to talk to her. _Needs_ him to talk to her.

There’s a long pause. She waits. “Lewis blames herself for leaving Watney, but I’m the one who told her that he was dead,” he finally answers. 

“How could you possibly know that he was alive?” She says. “His suit had decompressed, his bio-monitor showed that he was dead. He _should_ be dead. Actually surviving an antenna piercing through his EVA suit _and_ his abdomen was even more of a freak accident than the freak accident which happened in the first place. In fact, the whole thing is so out there it’s pretty much straight out of a Hollywood movie.”

“There’s no such thing as a freak accident on Mars,” he objects. “The whole fucking planet is out to kill us. Man wasn’t meant to be on Mars.”

“Watney knew it was dangerous when he signed up for this mission. We all did.”

“But it never even occurred to me that he’d still be alive. NASA has a backup for everything, why not for the bio-monitor computer?”

“It wasn’t your job to design the EVA suits,” she reminds him. “And you bet they’ll have a backup system in place on Ares 4.”

“That will be too late for Watney.”

“No, it’s not too late,” she says. “Because he’s still alive, and if _anyone_ can survive on Mars, it’s Watney. If you or I had been stranded on Mars, we wouldn’t stand a chance. We don’t have the skills necessary to survive there for four years. You treating your own medical problems or me fixing software wouldn’t get us very far. But Watney? A botanist _and_ a mechanic? He’s growing potatoes using his own shit and our fucking _Thanksgiving_ _meal_!”

To her relief, he chuckles, and she can practically see how his back and shoulders relax at her words. He shifts, turns around. She reaches out her hand, stroking his cheek. She’s not surprised when she finds that it’s wet with tears, but when he does the same for her, she is surprised to realize that she’s been crying, too. She didn’t even notice, she was so focused on his pain.

“ _We_ left him there alive,” she says. “We all did.”

“We did,” he agrees. “But Watney’s going to live. He’s one stubborn motherfucker.”

She can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, he is.”

He stretches out his arm, and it takes her a few seconds to realize that he does it so she can rest her head on it. She does. The bare skin of his upper arm is warm, he smells of soap.

She falls asleep with her head on his shoulder.

 

* * *

 

**Johanssen**

The first few days after they learned that Watney is alive, she sort of expects Chris to tell her that he’d prefer to sleep alone from now on. She’s very aware of what led him to her bed in the first place. Now that Watney is alive, and there is a rescue plan in place, everything has changed. Two sleeping in a bunk meant for one is obviously cramped, and she assumes he’d get more sleep in his own bed, now that they can start to put Mars behind them. She steels herself for that conversation, in which he’ll thank her for her help, but move on to say that he’s okay now, he’ll be moving back into his own room.

But he doesn’t. Every night, the door to her room slides open, almost without a sound, and he slips into her bed.

NASA still won’t let them communicate with Watney directly, which annoys her to no end. Beck says that both he and Lewis have tried to reason with NASA, but it doesn’t help. The answer is always a firm “not yet”.

She, on the other hand, tries to get her hands on as many details on the Iris mission as possible. It’s frustratingly difficult. NASA must have done risk assessments on the Iris launch. She has repeatedly requested the stats on estimated probability of mission failure, but every time the answer is the same: Classified. There’s something about this that she just doesn’t like.

But Chris stays in her bed. One night, her head on his shoulder as usual, she impulsively kisses his t-shirt-covered chest.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

He doesn’t ask what for, or why, he just holds her closer.

 

* * *

 

 

**Johanssen**

Chris is on the treadmill. He’s listening to music, and his back is towards her, so he doesn’t see or hear her enter. She just watches him run for a minute or two. He’s not overly large or muscular, no astronauts are, because their caloric requirements would be too high. Tall or heavily built people are never even considered as potential space mission candidates. Chris isn’t huge, but he is strong, with great endurance. She wonders how long he’s been on the treadmill. He has sweated through his t-shirt.

Finally he stops, panting.

“Good run?” She asks.

“Yeah.” He turns around when he hears her talk and smiles. He gestures towards the panorama window. “Our gym has the best view in the galaxy, doesn’t it? It’s pretty inspiring.”

“Yes,” she agrees. “It is.”

But she’s not really looking at the stars. He walks over to her, still breathing hard, a towel around his shoulders.

“I gotta go take a shower,” he says. “The treadmill is all yours.”

“Thanks.”

She runs until she’s exhausted.

 

* * *

 

**Beck**

He wakes up to find that his cock is pressed against her thigh – and that he’s rock hard.

When was the last time I had a morning erection? He thinks, tears burning in his eyes. He’s intensely relieved, but it’s also pretty awkward. Thank God Beth is a heavy sleeper. He gently extricates himself from her, which isn’t easy, because the bed is small and they’re usually sleeping in what is basically a big pile of limbs now. She mutters something in her sleep, for a second it looks like she’s searching for him, but thankfully, she doesn’t wake up.

He needs to do something about this… situation. Martinez refers to the only shower on the _Hermes_ as Jerk-off Central when neither Beth nor Lewis is around. Their showers are timed at three minutes each, which doesn’t sound like a lot when you’re on Earth, but in space, those three minutes are actually one of the few true luxuries they’re allowed. Apparently daily showers are considered important not only to personal hygiene but also to morale, and he couldn’t agree more.

For more than one reason.

It’s as if he can still smell the sweet, clean scent of her hair, and he’s so painfully hard he’s afraid he won’t even make it to the shower without blowing his load in his pants like a goddamn 15-year-old. He almost desperately sheds his clothes, turns on the warm water, and gets in.  Three minutes will definitely be long enough today.

He jerks off almost furiously, feeling the warm water flow over his body. It’s different now that he knows what she looks like when she sleeps. The little sounds she makes. He knows how soft and small her body is, what it feels like against his own even though all they do is sleep, and his new knowledge compliments his old fantasies perfectly. He can feel his orgasm approaching hard and fast, and it’s been so long, so very long, that when his cum shoots in spurts against the shower wall, he can’t remember ever coming this hard before. He pants, resting his forehead against the wall as he tries to catch his breath. He watches his cum mixing with the last of the water, down into the drain.

He quickly dries and puts on clean clothes. When he gets out, Lewis is standing outside the door, waiting for her turn.

“Early shower today?” Lewis asks, raising an eyebrow. He knows she’s usually the first to rise, and the first to take a shower.

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep. It’s all yours. Sorry you had to wait.”

He really hopes he managed to rinse off all the cum from the shower wall.

 

* * *

 

**Johanssen**

Falling asleep with Chris has become her secret dirty pleasure. Well, it’s not really dirty. In fact, it’s very innocent. But she revels in the physical contact. She’s never been one to cuddle – with her exes, she was always more of a ‘have sex then roll over and fall asleep type.’ She realizes that with Chris, she’s usually the one who initiates physical contact.

 

* * *

 

**Beck**

Over the years he has received hundreds, if not thousands, of emails from Watney. This one is different, though. It feels almost like receiving a letter from his diseased grandmother or something. He stares at the computer screen for almost five minutes before he can make himself open the email. Of course, he’s known for a while that Watney’s alive, but receiving an email from someone whose death you deep inside came to accept, is hard.

Two sentences immediately stand out.

_“You need to tell Johanssen how you feel. If you don’t, you’ll regret it forever.”_

He thinks about it all day. Watney must have had lots of time to think about regrets. Yeah, he’s probably right, he concludes.

But Watney is probably right about something else, too. He can’t tell Beth until they get back to Earth. If things get weird between them after he tells her, two months in a small space ship with nowhere to go would be a disaster. There’s a real possibility this might blow up in his face, he admits to himself. He has no idea where she stands. She seems to like sleeping next to him, he doesn’t think it’s just some kind of favor to him anymore. But there’s a huge step from sleeping in the same bed with a guy, to not freaking out when the same guy admits that he has been in love with you for _years_.

So yeah. Waiting until the mission is over is definitely a good idea.

 

* * *

 

**Johanssen**

He always brings his own pillow so they don’t have to share hers – NASA pillows are ridiculously small and definitely not meant for two. 

 “What’s your favorite place?” he asks her.

“On Earth?”

He nods. So she tells him about when she went on a trip to Fiji. The crystal clear waters, the snorkeling, the fresh fruit, the hammock on the beach.

“It sounds wonderful,” he says.

“Have you been to Fiji?” she asks. She’s lying with her head on his shoulder. Through his t-shirt, she absentmindedly traces a pattern on his collarbone with her index finger.

“No.”

“Maybe we can go there one day.”

Only after the words have left her mouth, does she realize she has violated their unspoken rule of not talking about the future. And worse, her words could possibly imply that she’d want to go with him. _Together_.

Shit.

There’s a long pause. Her heart pounds as she waits for him to freak out. _Shit_.

“Yeah,” he finally says. “That sounds amazing. A hammock on an isolated, tropical beach?” It’s too dark to tell, but somehow, she’s pretty sure that he’s smiling. “I bet they have drinks, too. Count me in.”

She’s smiling too.

 

* * *

 

 

**Johanssen**

She feels him sometimes, at night.

The first time, it takes a while for her sleep-muddled brain to realize that her ass is practically grinding into his erection - which by the way feels pretty impressive. Blood rushes to her cheeks, and she can barely breathe. She shifts, moves as far away from him as she can, but the bed is really narrow and that’s not very far at all. She can feel wetness gathering between her legs. Without thinking, she puts her hand between her thighs, trying to relieve the pressure, but she tears it away when a shudder goes through her body. Crap, she’s making this even _worse_.

She doesn’t get much sleep the rest of the night.

She knows that having erections in your sleep is perfectly normal in perfectly healthy men, and it has nothing to do with her. It’s just a normal bodily reaction, and it’s just a really narrow bed. That’s all.

She also knows that her own bodily reactions are completely normal, because she’s a perfectly healthy woman who hasn’t had sex with anyone but herself in _years_. Before, at least she had plenty of opportunity to get off in the privacy of her own room whenever she needed some stress relief. But now, with Chris here, her room is obviously no longer an option. But then she remembers Jerk-off Central (it’s a small ship - of course she’s overheard Martinez talking about it with the other men, and she knows that Lewis has, too). There is absolutely no reason why it should be reserved for men, right?

It helps. And thinking about how Chris probably touches himself in here too makes her come even faster.

 

* * *

 

**Beck**

They are going back to Mars. They are going back to fucking Mars!

He never thought he’d want to see that wretched planet again, but now, after they have all agreed to basically tell NASA to fuck themselves, he feels happier and more elated than he has in years. It’s not just him, either – it’s as if they have all come out of a trance that they have been in since Mars. Sure, he knows there’s a very real possibility they’ll all die, and if they don’t they’ll add another year and a half to their mission. Still, everyone in the crew looks _happy_. Even Martinez and Vogel, who have kids back home. Even Lewis who, as the commanding officer, will have to handle a NASA shitstorm of epic proportions once they change course, and if they make it back to Earth alive, there’s a good chance she might be court martialed.

One thing is for sure: Neither of them is going back to space ever again. But if that’s the worst thing that NASA can throw at them, then whatever. They have a common goal now. Save Mark Watney. Get back to Earth alive.

Both saving Watney and getting back to Earth alive will involve a lot of hard work. He immediately starts researching the medical problems Watney will probably have when they rescue him. He doesn’t allow himself to use the word ‘if’, ‘when’ is the only alternative. Martinez and Vogel carefully go through every single detail of the Rich Purnell maneuver. Lewis starts to look into long-term maintenance, as well as preparing her responses to the expected NASA shitstorm.

At 1400 he takes a break to give Beth a cup of coffee. It’s really just an excuse to see her work. Hacking the ship’s computers is absolutely vital – if she doesn’t succeed, NASA will override them when they change course, and if that happens, Watney stays on Mars.  But he’s not worried, he knows Beth can do it. Her face is practically glowing as she works. She has never looked more beautiful.

He realizes that the sudden and dramatic change of plans also means he’ll have to reevaluate his plans regarding Beth. He had decided to follow Watney’s advice and tell her about his feelings when they got back to Earth. Now he has no idea when the hell he’s supposed to tell her though. Does he still wait until they get home - a year and a half from now? Does he tell her sooner, and risk things becoming weird between them for the rest of the trip – as well as risk Lewis’s wrath?

He decides to worry about it later. Right now, he just wants to watch Beth work.

They are going to save Watney. When they land on Earth, they’ll be six, not five.  

 

* * *

 

**Beck**

It’s done. They are on their way back to Mars, even though they’ll have to take a detour via Earth first.

That night, over dinner, they open their two only bottles of red wine. They were supposed to drink them on Christmas Eve, but no one really felt like opening it back then. Even though they know there’s a lot at stake, spirits haven’t been this high on the _Hermes_ since, well, ever. They did it. They have forced NASA’s hand, and now NASA will have no choice but to help them figure out how to solve all the countless problems they will no doubt encounter along the way.

He hasn’t had any alcohol in ages, and he actually can feel the room spin when he lies down. His college self would probably laugh at how just a couple of glasses of wine is enough to make him if not actually drunk, then at least tipsy.

“Mars, here we come. Again,” Beth giggles. Beth Johanssen actually _giggles_. Her liver alcohol dehydrogenase production is probably as downregulated as his own after being sober for more than a year.

“Yeah,” he agrees. His limbs are heavy. Beth’s warm breath is tickling his ear. Her hands are slowly exploring his upper body.

He tries to clear his head. Wait.

What the hell is she doing?

Her thigh is draped across his hip, and he can feel his body starting to react. He tries to think of cold showers, the Antarctica, slugs, anything, but it doesn’t help. It’s Beth, and she’s so close and what is she doing, and _fuck_.

He’s almost positive he can feel her lips against his throat. There is no way in hell she can’t feel his raging hard-on.

“What exactly are you doing, Beth?” he whispers.

“I’m exploring.”

“ _Exploring_?” It feels like his cock is going to explode.

“Yeah, well, I am an astronaut. It’s in my job description,” she whispers.

“Um, I’m actually pretty sure that this kind of exploration _isn’t_ in your job description.” His voice has grown husky. Dammit.

“We’ve done a lot today that’s not in my job description,” she whispers. “Mutiny, for starters. So I figured this wouldn’t be a big deal. You know, comparatively.” Her hand slides down, pulling up his t-shirt. It feels like her hand is on fire when she touches the bare skin of his stomach for the first time.

He swallows. “You’re drunk,” he says. “We both are. I don’t want you to… regret anything in the morning.” His hand catches her wrists, stops her hand from moving further south. He turns his head, facing her.

“I’ve never regretted anything in the morning,” she answers.

“ _Never_?”

“No.”

He’s acutely aware that all that’s separating his cock from the bare skin of her inner thigh, are his boxer briefs. Oh God, he bets her skin is _so soft_.

He lets go of her wrist.

“I don’t want you to regret this tomorrow,” he repeats.

“I won’t.” Now he’s absolutely sure that it’s her lips that are pressed against his throat, because he can feel her tongue against his skin, wet and warm. “I’ve wanted to do this for too long.”

His brain desperately tries to process what her words actually mean, but it’s suddenly impossible to think because she slips her hand inside his boxer briefs and closes around his cock. He bites his cheek so hard to keep himself from moaning out loud that he tastes blood. She tilts her hips slightly, and he realizes that she’s using his hip bone to stimulate herself against his thigh as she pumps him almost lazily. She pauses briefly to push his boxer briefs down, licks her palm, then resumes. The pressure of her small hands around his cock is just perfect, and with some lubrication, he can feel his orgasm build up already.

He’s almost desperate to touch her too, and palms her breast, over her tank top at first. He briefly thinks that maybe she doesn’t want him to - her touching him isn’t necessarily an invite for him to touch _her_ \- but thankfully she doesn’t stop him, so she must be okay with it. The fabric gets in the way and he pulls the tank top down as far as he can, exposing one breast. He wishes it wasn’t so dark in here because he’d really like to see her, but switching on the light would mean taking his hand off her breast, and there’s no way he’s going to do that right now. Her breast is small and firm and soft and perfect in his hand. A soft sigh escapes from her throat when he rolls her nipple between his fingers, and it’s almost enough to make him come. He swells even more, she must feel it because she speeds up, and _fuck_.

“Beth, I’m gonna…” He’s unable to complete his sentence, as his cum shoots out on his belly, the back of his head digging into the pillow. She strokes him through his climax, until his body goes limp and he collapses in bed.

He struggles to regain his breath. She shifts beside him, sits up, and for a split second, he thinks that she’s going to leave, and he’s terrified that he’s fucked this up completely. But then he feels her fingertips on his abdomen, lightly, as if they are searching. They find a few drops of cum, which are already starting to cool. Then he feels something warm and wet touching the skin of his stomach. His mouth falls open when he realizes that it’s the tip of her _tongue_. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about the logistics of sex in space, including the inevitable mess, but in all his fantasies of Beth, he hadn’t pictured this. Coming in her mouth, sure, but having her clean him up after giving him a handjob… This will probably be enough to fuel his fantasies for the rest of his life.

When she’s done cleaning him up, she sits up, and he’s so worked up he can’t help it. His lips find hers in a crushing kiss. It’s the weirdest first kiss he’s ever had, he’s tasting his own _cum_ on her tongue for fuck’s sake, but she eagerly responds.

“Come here,” he whispers, pulling her down with him. He turns her small body around, pressing her ass, still covered by her panties, against his semi-hard cock. For months, she’s mostly been the one spooning him, but the tables are turned now. One of his hands finds her breast again, pinching a nipple lightly, and she gasps.

They’ve already done more than enough tonight to ruin their friendship forever if it turns out that he’ll be Beth’s first ever regret in the morning. What harm can it do to return the favor? He tells himself. He needs to find out what sounds she makes when she comes, what she feels like under his fingertips.

He gives her the chance to change her mind, tracing circles around her belly-button, getting closer and closer to the elastic of her panties. He can _smell_ her arousal in the tiny room, even over his own cum. Still, he needs her to say it.

“Chris,” she whimpers. She actually _whimpers_. It’s a sound he never thought he’d hear from her. “Please.” She lifts her thigh, pulling it back, allowing him access, and he can’t help it. He’s only human, he knows he’s weak and he’s probably going to regret this tomorrow, but he slips his hand inside her panties. He finds coarse curls and swollen, slick folds, and oh God, she’s incredibly wet. He explores her folds slowly, every single one, and she shudders against him as he finally starts tracing circles around her clit. It sounds like she’s trying to muffle her sounds in the pillow as she grinds her ass against him, and fuck, he’s growing hard again already. But that’s not important right now, all he can focus on is how Beth Johanssen is allowing him to make her come. He slips his index finger inside her to gather up her fluids, just not all of it, just up to the second joint. Her walls clamp around his finger, and she gasps.

He can tell she won’t last long, she’s thrashing in his arms when his fingers return to her clit, now even wetter than before. “Chris, I’m… oh, _God_! _Chris_!”

He has years’ worth of fantasies of what he’d do to her, but this isn’t like any of them, it’s way better. Even if he never gets another chance to touch her, it doesn’t matter, because right now, she’s coming, she’s falling apart with two of his slick fingers around her clit, and he holds her close as she rides out her climax.

It’s her turn to collapse in bed, spent, panting. He’s almost full mast again, but he just lies still, his fingers still between her folds, kissing her neck. Finally, she shifts, carefully removing his hand from her panties. “Sorry,” she whispers, and for a second, he panics. “Too sensitive,” she explains, yawning. Then she curls up against him, her head resting on her favorite spot his shoulder, and falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always inteded to write space smut (because, you know, space smut!), but I didn't plan this scene. I figured they'd at least get the resupplies before things would get smutty between them, but then this last scene kind of just happened. And once I'd written it, I just thought, of course. This is just the kind of thing Beth would do. Of course she'd initiate it. And of course Chris wouldn't be able to resist.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken me forever to update! First trimester really, really sucks. Thankfully, I'm feeling much better now, and I finally have enough energy to think about (smutty) fanfiction. 
> 
> This chapter is rather short - I had originally written a smutty scene as well, but I decided to split this chapter so I could post this now instead of making you wait even longer. But the next chapter will be smutty, I promise. ;)
> 
> Thank you so much for leaving kudos and comments, they mean so much to me. <3 
> 
> And now... The morning after.

**Beck**

The alarm wakes him up. He blinks against the bright light, confused. He can feel the effects of the red wine he had last night -  he’s not really hungover, but he still has that the near-headache, the heavy feeling he knows from experience will last most of the day, no matter how much water he drinks.

Beth is sleeping with her head on his shoulder.

He tries to focus.

Beth.

 _Fuck_.

He hears Lewis exit her room. She says something to Vogel, which means he’s up too, and he hears Martinez’s heavy footsteps through their shared wall.

“Beth,” he hisses in her ear. “Wake up!” He shakes her, because he knows she sleeps like the dead even without red wine.

She jolts awake, and she opens her mouth to say something, but he clamps his hand over her mouth. “Sssshhh,” he whispers. “You gotta get out of here quickly, before Martinez comes in to wake you.”

The last thing he needs now after what happened last night, _literally_ the last thing, is being walked in on by Martinez. He’d never hear the end of it, and he really doesn’t want to deal with Martinez’s shit right now. Not when he has no idea how Beth feels about last night. If she truly never has regrets, or if this will be her first time.

Her hair is a mess, her eyes are hazy, and for a split second, he wonders if his words have even registered with her. But they must have, or maybe his eyes convey some of the desperation he feels, because she nods and stumbles out of bed. He quickly hides under the covers – if Martinez looks inside, he’ll instantly see that Beth is not alone, but hopefully, she’ll close the door behind her before he has the chance to peek inside.

“Johanssen! What the hell is wrong with you?” It’s Martinez’s voice, and he sighs in relief when he hears the door slide shut. “You’re awake _already_? Are you feeling sick?”

Beth mumbles something he can’t quite hear, which may or may not include the word “asshole.”

Martinez just laughs. “’Cause if you are feeling sick, whatever you do, please don’t throw up in any of the zero G areas. I’m not cleaning up your vomit from the ceiling.”

“Go fuck yourself, Martinez,” she snaps. “I can handle my alcohol, thank you very much.”

“Well, if NASA had known a little bit of red wine would actually make you get out of bed in the morning, I bet they would’ve brought a lot more.”

Even though he can’t see her, he’s pretty sure Beth is rolling his eyes.

He waits until he can’t hear any voices outside. He knows he should get out of here sooner rather than later. Martinez will go looking for him if he doesn’t show up for breakfast, and he doesn’t want Martinez to find an empty room and a cold bed. He slips inside his room, ruffling up his pillow and his blanket, and quickly grabs a change of clothes before he heads for the shower.

 

* * *

 

**Johanssen**

They obviously can’t talk about last night over breakfast, which is good, because it gives her some more time to think.

What the hell do you say the morning after you gave your best friend a handjob? Not to mention that after you licked up his cum, he gave you the most amazing orgasm you’ve had in ages. Okay, so obviously it’s been a while since she’s had sex, but still.

He acts weirdly at breakfast. Like he is trying very hard to pretend as if had nothing has happened. She probably wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t known him so well, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? She does know him very well by now.

The problem is that even though she’s reasonably sure she’s the only one of the crew who has cum around Chris’s fingers, the others still know him pretty well. She really hopes the others can’t tell, though. And she hopes even more fervently that any of their crewmates don’t pick up on how she’s pretending, too.

After breakfast, she finds that she’s unable to shut everything out and just _work_ , the way she usually does. It’s annoying, and she’s mad at herself, because she’s usually really good at her job, and she’s great at shutting the world out, too. But today, she’s distracted, and her work is definitely not up to its usual standard. She’s also mad at herself for constantly checking the time. Ugh, what the hell is wrong with her? At 11, she can’t help sending stolen glances towards the door, but it doesn’t open.

11:01. 11:02.

Goddammit. Chris is never late for anything. She’s just started to worry when he appears with two cups of coffee – one for her, and one for himself. As usual. But he’s five minutes late, for the first time since he started bringing her coffee months ago.

She knows why he’s late, of course. What she doesn’t know, is what to do now. It’s been hours since breakfast, but she still hasn’t been able to come up with anything to say to him.

He hands her the cup of coffee. “Thanks,” she tells him. That’s pretty safe, at least.

“You’re welcome,” he answers.  Also safe.

There’s a long silence.

“So…” she begins. She clears her throat. She’s not very good at this. “Are things to be weird between us from now on? Because I was hoping that last night wouldn’t change anything.”

He hesitates, then closes the door behind him, and sits down on a chair. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I don’t think it’s realistic to expect that last night won’t change anything,” he confesses. “And I know you said you never regret anything the next morning, but…”

“Do you?” She cuts him off.

“Do I what?”

“Regret it.”

He sighs, scratches his head. Nervously, she thinks. “I guess that… depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether _you_ regret it.”

She leans back in her chair. “I don’t. I told you, I never regret anything the next morning. I either wake up and realize that ok, it sucked, but it’s still a learning experience, right? Life is too short for regrets.” She swallows hard, realizing she’s lying. With everything that’s happened the last few months – first thinking that Watney was dead, then finding out he was alive after all and they _left_ _him on Mars_ , all _alone_ , and finally hijacking the _Hermes_ \- it’s difficult to talk about not having regrets. She’s never had any regrets about men, or most other things in life, but Mars… She’s kept going back to those last minutes on Mars, thinking ‘what if?’.

He looks at her expectantly, and she realizes that she must’ve spaced out for a second. “Or…?” He asks. She furrows her brow in confusion. “What if it _didn’t_ suck?” He clarifies.

“Or… I wake up and want to do it again.”

He meets her eyes, and for the first time since he entered the room, he holds her gaze. “I should’ve figured you’d find a way to fit your sex partners into only two categories,” he says, and for the first time today, she sees a glint of humor in her eyes, which makes her relax somewhat. “Everything is always black and white with you. Nothing in between.” He pauses briefly. “I’m almost scared to ask which category I belong to?” His knuckles whiten as he holds his mug. But other than that, he doesn’t show any other signs of stress.

She bites her lip, hesitates. Not because she’s not sure about how to categorize him, but because she’s never talked to anyone about this before. It’s just seemed too personal. Until now. “The latter,” she admits. He runs his hand through his hair, shaking his head as if in disbelief. “What?” She asks.

“We really suck at communicating about this.” He chuckles. “You tell me that you’d like to ‘do it again’ with a look on your face that most people reserve for funerals.”

“Well, you’ve known me for years,” she snaps. ”Surely it can’t come as a surprise that I suck at communicating.”

“No, it doesn’t. But even though I thought I’d gotten to know you pretty well, _everything_ that happened last night came as a complete surprise to me. We’ve shared a bed for months now, and suddenly, out of the blue…” She opens her mouth, about to say something, but he shakes his head. “Please, let me finish. We’ve shared a bed literally for _months_ , and sure, there’s been some cuddling, if you want to call it that, but you’ve never given me any kind of indication that you’d be interested in anything more.” He stops. “Or did you? Did I just miss all your signals?”

She shrugs. “Um, I don’t know,” she admits. “I guess not.”

“Okay.” She’s really not sure if it is okay. But at least he continues. “And I was fine with that. Really, I was. I just wanted to be there for you, do whatever I could so you would feel better. So we’d both feel better, really. But last night, you made a pretty direct pass at me. Which I didn’t mind, by the way, I mean it’s probably pretty obvious that I… enjoyed myself last night.” He’s blushing now. “But then you gave me some crap about ‘never regretting anything’, and that’s probably when I should have stopped.”

“Why?” She feels something twist in her stomach. So he does regret it.

“Because frankly, I can think of two reasons why someone can _never_ have regretted anything the morning after, ever, with _anyone_. The first would be if they had never really had a one night stand –“ She shakes her head, nope – she’s definitely had her share of those. “- Then the only other explanation I can find is that you never really let sex get personal. You never let it affect you, or maybe more accurately, you never let your sex partners affect you. At least not your casual ones.” He pauses, searching her face for a reaction. “Am I right?” She bites her lip, then nods. “And I don’t think I _can_ have what happened last night mean nothing to me. You’re not just some random stranger. You’re…” His voice trails off, and there’s an uncomfortable silence.

She considers his words. She’s never really thought about it that way, but she admits to herself he may have a point. Sure, she’s been in a few committed relationships, but it’s been a while. And she’s had more than a few one night stands, and some semi-regular fuckbuddies too, but it was always just physical. She needed to get off,  to have fun, and she did. It was easy for her not to let them mean anything. She was always so busy, first with working her ass off to be picked for the Ares 3 mission, and then with training and preparation for the mission. She didn’t even miss being in a committed relationship.

“We’re going to be stuck on the same spaceship for the next year and a half,” she tries to explain.  “I knew that yesterday, and I still initiated what happened last night. I wanted it. Even though I knew I couldn’t give you a fake number and never see you again.”

“You’ve actually done that?”

“You _haven’t_?” She widens her eyes in surprise.

He shakes his head and laughs. She can see how his shoulders relax somewhat. “My specialty is sneaking out after she falls asleep,” he confesses with a smile. “To avoid the awkward morning after. Including the question about exchanging phone numbers.”

“Doctor!” She gasps dramatically in fake surprise, but she can’t help but smile, too. “And here I always thought you were so trustworthy, a regular mother in law’s dream. If your mother knew, she would be so disappointed in you.”

“I firmly believe that mothers should never know anything about their children’s sex life.” There it is again, that twinkle in his eyes.

“I wholeheartedly agree.”

He leans back in the chair, takes a sip of coffee. The room is small, most rooms on the _Hermes_ are, and their chairs are only separated by a yard or so. There’s another long pause, but it’s slightly less uncomfortable than before. “No,” he finally says.

“No?” She answers, confused.

“You asked me earlier if I regret it. And the answer to your question is no. I don’t regret it.”

She exhales slowly. “Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page about that,” she says, her voice low. She’s not willing to admit just how relieved his answer made her feel. “If you want, we can put all of this behind us, and never talk about it again. I’d be okay with that. With everything that’s going on, with the mission being extended and NASA regs and being on a spaceship, it would probably be the sensible thing to do.” He doesn’t answer, doesn’t nod or shake his head or do anything to give her any kind of indication of what he thinks. “But… If you would like to do it again sometime, well... I told you the truth about that categorization.” She’s pretty sure she’s blushing now. “I enjoyed myself last time too,” she admits. “As you may have noticed,” she adds dryly.

“Um, yeah… I noticed.” His pupils are fat and black, and when she meets her eyes, she somehow knows what he’s thinking. He’s thinking about her licking up his cum.

A smile starts to spread across her face. It had been kind of a spur of the moment decision. She had planned to just use his t-shirt or something, but then she couldn’t help but wonder what his cum tasted like, and well…

“Good.” She awkwardly tucks her hair behind her ear. “That’s… good.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “It is. I mean… it was.”

There’s a long silence, but this time, it’s not as awkward. He looks at her, and she has no idea what he’s thinking, but he looks more at ease than he did when he first entered the room. She takes another sip of coffee.

“I have a meeting with Lewis in five minutes,” he finally says. “I gotta go. I can’t be late, she’ll be suspicious. After almost being caught in your bedroom this morning, the last thing I need is for her to start asking questions.”

“Yeah.”

He gets up from his chair. “So… see you tonight?”

“Yeah. But you have to work on your sneaking out in the morning technique,” she says. “Because you sucked at it this morning.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that.”

He smiles. She smiles, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews always make my day. <3


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